There is no official link between the cancer that's impacting the Voelker family and the old Berlin and Farro site. But they're convinced it's more than a coincidence.
Ron Voelker, 36, was a healthy truck driver when he was diagnosed with liver cancer about eight months ago.
"It's in my liver, nine lesions. I have six months. I'm terminally ill," he said.
Four months after Ron's diagnosis, his 18-year-old daughter Shyra was diagnosed with another cancer: Hotchkins Disease, a form of lymphoma.
"And we have suffered a lot and they need to be done, you know?" said Shyra, a senior at Swartz Creek High School.
The family of seven has been living in the house since 2004. Less than a quarter mile away is the old Berlin and Farro site. Its been cleaned up and closed for more than a decade.
The family uses water from a 200-foot well.
"I cooked with it, I drank it and that's why I'm sick because I was perfectly healthy," Ron said.
Extensive tests of the water and the soil are now being performed. The EPA and DEQ are investigating. But the ordeal has left the Voelkers bitter and broke.
"I would like it to be exposed so nobody else's family has to go through this," Ron said. "It's terrible. I don't wish it on anybody."
Ron says when he purchased his home, it was never disclosed that it was located so close to the former dump site.
The EPA and DEQ are expected to re-examine the groundwater. But it's unclear if it can ever be determined whether that site caused their cancer.
